Lorna Simpson

Lorna Simpson combines photography and text to address issues of identity, race, and gender in our society.

5 Day Forecast (above)
The structure suggests a diary of sorts, or at any rate a ‘forecast’, to use its meteorological metaphor. The similarity of the pose in the photographs, however, suggests the drudgery of repetition with little variation on the horizon. Underneath the images are ten additional plaques, each featuring a single word. From left to right they read: ‘Misdescription’, ‘Misinformation’, ‘Misidentify’, ‘Misdiagnose’, ‘Misfunction’, ‘Mistranscribe’, ‘Misremember’, ‘Misgauge’, ‘Misconstrue’ and ‘Mistranslate’. The words, with their negative connotations, imply a repeated breakdown in communication, within personal, professional and racial relationships.

Wigs

She explores identity as a problematic condition, focusing on African American culture and each of her photographs depicts a message related to a person's race or gender.

"I do not appear in any of my work. I think maybe there are elements to it and moments to it that I use from my own personal experience, but that, in and of itself, is not so important as what the work is trying to say about either the way we interpret experience or the way we interpret things about identity."

This particular piece, which features over 100 photo-booth like framed portraits, made me think of a huge visual family tree and almost reminded me of a crime board due to the layout of the photos. I therefore intend to create something similar with my family tree but linking them together in a way that reflects both this Lorna Simpson piece and a crime board.